Part 12 (1/2)
Are they not instances of the processes by which to this day in the Providence of G.o.d truth is sifted and ultimately beaten out-namely debate and controversy between different minds or different schools of thought, between earnest supporters of various and often hostile opinions in neither of which lies the whole of the truth? The evidence for Revelation by Argument which the Book of Jeremiah affords is not the least of its contributions to the history and philosophy of religion.
Lecture V.
UNDER JEHOIAKIM. 608-597-8 B.C.
1. From Megiddo to Carchemish, 608-605.
Josiah's faithful reign, and with it all thorough efforts to fulfil the National Covenant,(302) came to a tragic close on the field of Megiddo-the Flodden of Judah.
The year was 608 B.C. Medes and Chaldeans together had either taken, or were still besieging, Nineveh; and Pharaoh Necoh,(303) eager to win for Egypt a share of the crumbling a.s.syrian Empire, had started north with a great army. Marching by the coast he first took Gaza, and crossing by one of the usual pa.s.ses from Sharon to Esdraelon,(304) found himself opposed near Megiddo by a Jewish force led by its king in person. The Chronicler tells us that Necoh sought to turn Josiah from his desperate venture: _What have I to do with thee? I am come not against thee but against the House with which I am at war. G.o.d hath spoken to speed me; forbear from G.o.d who is with me, lest He destroy thee._(305) But Josiah persisted. The issue of so unequal a contest could not be doubtful. The Jewish army was routed and Josiah himself immediately slain.(306)
At first sight, the courage of Josiah and his small people in facing the full force of Egypt seems to deserve our admiration, as much as did the courage of King Albert and his nation in opposing the faithless invasion of Belgium by the Germans aiming at France. There was, however, a difference. Necoh was not invading Judah, but crossing Philistine territory and a Galilee which had long ceased to be Israel's. Some suppose that since the a.s.syrian hold upon Palestine relaxed, Josiah had gradually occupied all Samaria. If this be so, was he now stirred by a gallant sense of duty to a.s.sert Israel's ancient claim to Galilee as well? We cannot tell.(307) But what we may confidently a.s.sume is that, having fulfilled by thirteen years of honest reforms his own part of the terms of the Covenant, Josiah believed that he could surely count on the Divine fulfilment of the rest, and that some miracle would bring to a righteous king and people victory over the heathen, however more powerful the heathen might be. He was only thirty-nine years of age.
His servants carried his body from the field in a chariot to Jerusalem, bringing him back, as we may realise, to a people stricken with consternation. Their trust in the Temple was shaken-they were not _delivered_!(308) In the circ.u.mstances they did their feeble best by raising to the vacant throne Josiah's son, Shallum, as Jehoahaz, _the Lord hath taken hold_. But the new name proved no omen of good. In three months Necoh had the youth in bonds at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, _that he might not reign in Jerusalem_, and afterwards took him to Egypt. Of this fresh sorrow Jeremiah sang as if it had drowned out the sorrow of Megiddo-
Weep not for the dead, XXII. 10 Nor bemoan him, But for him that goeth away weep sore, For he cometh no more, Nor seeth the land of his birth.
Jehoahaz died in Egypt.
The next King, Jehoiakim, another of Josiah's sons, was set on the throne by Necoh, who also exacted a heavy tribute. What national disillusion! The hopes falsely kindled upon the letter of Deuteronomy lay quenched on Megiddo; and the faithful servant of the Covenant had, in spite of its promises as men would argue, been defeated and slain in the flower of his life. Judah had been released from the a.s.syrian yoke, only to fall into the hands of another tyrant, her new king his creature, and her people sorely burdened to pay him. The result was religious confusion. In at least a formal obedience to the deuteronomic laws of wors.h.i.+p, the people of the land continued to resort to the Temple fasts and festivals.(309) But resenting the failure of their G.o.d to grant victory numbers relapsed into an idolatry as rank as that under Ahaz or Mana.s.seh;(310) while others, more thoughtful but not less bewildered, conceived doubts of the worth of righteousness. And these tempers were embittered by the cruel selfishness of the new monarch and his reckless injustice. To the taxes required for the tribute to Egypt he added other exactions in order to meet his extravagance in enlarging and adorning his palace. The crime, with which Jeremiah charges him in the following lines, is one to which small kings in the East have often been tempted by their contact with civilisations richer than their own. On Judah Jehoiakim imposed the cruel corvee, which in our day Ismail Pasha imposed upon Egypt.
Woe to who builds his house by injustice, XXII. 13 His storeys by wrong, Who forces his fellows to serve for nothing, And pays not their wage.
Who saith,(311) 14 I will build me an ampler house And airier storeys, Widen my windows, panel with cedar, And paint with vermilion, Wilt thou thus play the king, 15 Fussing with cedar?
Thy sire, did not he eat and drink, And do justice and right, And judge for the poor and the needy? 16 Then was it well!(312) Was not this how to know Me?- Rede of the Lord.
But thine eyes and thy heart are on nought 17 Save thine own spoil, And on shedding of innocent blood, Doing outrage and murder.
Josiah had enjoyed what was enough for him in sober, seemly parallel to his faithful discharge of duty; his son was luxurious, unscrupulous, b.l.o.o.d.y, and withal petty-_fussing with cedar_, and cutting up the Prophet's roll piece by piece with a pen-knife! Jeremiah and Baruch's sarcastic notes on Jehoiakim find parallels in Victor Hugo's ”Chatiments”
of Napoleon III.: ”l'infiniment pet.i.t, monstreux et feroce;” ”Voici de l'or, viens pille et vole ... voici du sang, accours, viens boire, pet.i.t, pet.i.t!”
XXII. 18. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, King of Judah.
Mourn him they shall not, ”Woe brother!”
”Woe sister!”
Nor beweep him, ”Woe Lord!”
Or ”Woe Highness!”
With the burial of an a.s.s shall they bury him, 19 Dragged and flung out- Out from the gates of Jerusalem.
Such a prophet to such a king must have been intolerable, and through the following years Jeremiah was pursued by the royal hatred. There were other and more poisonous enemies. We have found him, from the first, steadily seeing through, and stoutly denouncing the great religious orders-the priests, natural believers in the Temple, with a belief, since Deuteronomy came into their hands, more dogmatic and arrogant than ever; and the professional prophets with their shallow optimism that all was well for Judah, and that her G.o.d could never bring upon her the doom which Jeremiah threatened in His Name. _Not He!_ was their answer to him. These two cla.s.ses were in conspiracy, deluding themselves and the people; in their trust upon the letter of the Law, they had no sense, as he told them, of _The Living G.o.d_.(313) Roused by his scorn they watched for an occasion to convict and destroy him.(314)
This he bravely gave by making, in obedience to G.o.d's call, public prediction of the ruin of the Temple. It is uncertain whether Jeremiah did so only once, as many think who read in Chs. VII and XXVI reports of the same address, or whether, as I am inclined to believe, the former chapter reports an address delivered under Josiah, and the latter the repet.i.tion of its substance in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim.(315) However this be, Ch. XXVI alone relates the consequences of his outspoken courage.